Aspirations of the Stars
by Evandar
Summary: Oneshot. Sirius and Harry slip away to stargaze together during his fifth year. Sirius/Harry


**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Harry Potter_ and am making no profit from this story.

**AN:** This was written for the HP_DarkAges Fest on LJ, for the prompt _"Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling…" Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun **Additional Element:** A content ending_, and it was beta'd - as all my fest submissions are - by my lovely S, who is entirely too patient with me.

* * *

Aspirations of the Stars

by Evandar

They land in a field. It takes a moment for the bike to roll to a halt, and there will be a baffled farmer in the morning, but Harry doesn't care about the tracks they leave behind them. They'll be long gone before they can be discovered – riding back to Hogwarts through dawn-pink skies. Sirius is a warm, solid presence in front of him and between his thighs. He can smell the thick leather of Sirius' bike jacket and the chamomile of his shampoo, and in the seconds between flight and the kickstand being lowered, he buries his face between Sirius' shoulder blades and breathes him in as deeply as he can; until his lungs ache fit to burst.

They aren't supposed to be out here. Sirius is meant to be in Grimmauld Place, Harry in Hogwarts and ne'er should the twain meet except that they do. And they come somewhere secret, like this field, and for however long the night lasts they're themselves instead of the people they're supposed to be.

The kickstand goes down. "Alright, kiddo," Sirius says. "Off."

The pockets on his jacket are enchanted with an undetectable expansion charm. Once dismounted, he pulls out a thick woollen blanket, a pack of cigarettes with a lighter, and a bottle of Firewhiskey. Harry takes the cigarettes from his godfather and opens them, taking out two and lighting them; he passes one over, and when Sirius' fingers brush his own, he blushes.

This is a ritual they started in Harry's fourth year, in quiet moments when Harry could slip out of Hogwarts and down to the village. Back then, it would be whatever he could steal from the kitchens, and it would be the hillside above the cave where Sirius was living. They would talk – about the Tournament; about Harry's parents; about the stars. Sirius would tell him stories about his family, matching them to the star or constellation they were named for.

It made sense to continue them. They both need these meetings so badly, to ground themselves and reconnect with the one other person who really seems to care. And they were never iexplicitly/i forbidden, though they most certainly would be if anyone ever found out, and Sirius has a right, he says, to tell Harry these things. He's his godfather, and Harry's grandmother was a Black, so it's his family history that's written in the stars too.

Harry's not overly bothered by that. He just likes spending time with Sirius. He likes the taste of cigarettes and Firewhiskey on his tongue and the way that Sirius' voice grows rougher the longer he talks. Sirius isn't used to talking anymore: Azbakan forced him into silence and no one now really wants to hear him. No one except Harry, who could listen to Sirius speak forever.

"This is the best place in Britain for stargazing," Sirius tells him as they lie back on the rug. Smoke drifts from his mouth as he speaks, and curls itself around Harry's, turning the view of the stars into a blue-grey swirl of fog like the inside of a crystal ball. "According to iThe Guardian/i, anyway."

"Do the Order know you sneak out for Muggle newspapers?" Harry asks, and Sirius snorts with laughter.

"I'm trying to avoid that lecture," he says, "so no."

When their first cigarettes are smoked and the butts discarded into a small Tupperware box brought along just to act as an ashtray, Sirius raises his hand and picks out a star. His fingers are long and crooked from being broken; tattooed with runes in prison, and Harry suspects Sirius might have done it to himself. He loves Sirius' hands. He loves how Sirius always uses the hand furthest from Harry to point so that he can hold Harry's hand with the other.

"That's Betelgeuse," Sirius says. "It's part of Orion, see?"

Slowly, as he talks about the fourteenth century and a vicious Dark Lord who dabbled with necromancy and bathed in blood, his hand slips across the blanket towards Harry's. His calloused fingers are incredibly gentle as they slide between Harry's own; his palm is warm and dry, and Harry grips back hard until there's no space left between them.

"He was defeated – hah, murdered – by his son. A great and noble act, apparently. More like a casual poisoning over dinner. The first of many, many occasions since."

If there's a reason behind why the Order seem so determined to keep them apart, that would be it. Sirius' family was Darker than Dark, and Harry knows that Sirius isn't as Light and pleasant as he would have people believe. But he remains, in Harry's eyes, a star. A guiding light breaking through the blackness. A voice to comfort and a shoulder to cry on; a hand to hold when there's nothing else to hold onto.

He turns his head away from the brilliant arch of the Milky Way. It stretches on, endless, and it will be there forever. But Sirius, the star by his side, won't be. He's human. Just a blip in time. Harry studies his profile – the straight nose and arching brows and the full, sweet mouth with its dry lips that scratch over Harry's own when they kiss – and thinks that he'll remember the way Sirius looks now for the rest of his life. Even when they're old, together, and he's half-blind and Sirius is as dry and wrinkled as old parchment, he'll remember this.

"You're not listening, are you?" Sirius asks, turning to look back at him. The stars are reflected in his eyes, sparkling. Mischievous and alive and Harry loves him so much that it hurts sometimes, like Sirius' name has been carved onto the muscle of his heart and along the insides of his ribs.

"I'm star gazing," he replies, and the shadow of Sirius' mouth shifts as he breaks into a wide grin. He tugs Harry closer, and Harry goes willingly, balancing himself on Sirius' chest as he presses their lips together in the first of that night's many kisses. He likes the taste of cigarettes and Firewhiskey, but he likes them even more when he's sucking them from Sirius' tongue and the taste of them will always bring him back here, to these meetings and to the stars.

He will remember this.

/lj-cut


End file.
